Marcia Purdie | Mt Lapz – Leopold Ranges

Marcia Purdie | Picanninny Creek

East Kimberley artist Marcia Purdie brings the skills of ochre painting that she learned from extended family members Shirley Purdie and Madigan Thomas at Warmun community, to create fine artworks depicting the East Kimberley landscape and its stories.
One such story is the story of the massacre at Mistake Creek, allocation right on Highway 1 in the East Kimberley . Marcia tells the story in her words – “That’s where a lot of people, like a family group were sitting down eating kangaroo. A cow had gone missing from the station, and a black tracker told the station manager that they took the missing cow, that they were eating beef. The station manager started shooting all the people.
One woman was shot in the hip but didn’t die, she crawled a long way, to the next tribal group. She crawled over the hill and told them what had happened – one witness.
They found that cow after, and knew that the people had been eating kangaroo. They speared the black tracker who told the manager that the people were eating beef. That’s why they call it Mistake Creek, because innocent people got killed for nothing – just sitting down eating near that boab tree. That wasn’t that long ago. “
Marcia’s paintings of Purnululu or the Bungle Bungles also draw on the traditional knowledge of the old people and how that country was used for hunting and ceremony. Her skills at describing the country and its importance are a major contribution.